


Harkness Rules Strip Poker

by riverlight



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Card Games, Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-10
Updated: 2008-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-26 17:51:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverlight/pseuds/riverlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto discovers quickly that Jack likes games. Jack being Jack, it's the  dirtier the better, but he'll play anything—online trivia games, the  weird floaty alien checkers-like game they found in the archives, card  games—Ianto saw him play two hours of "go fish" with a child in a  hospital waiting room once. (To be fair, he'd been on his feet for forty  hours straight, dealing with the latest crisis; at that point, cards  were probably all any of them could handle, even Jack.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harkness Rules Strip Poker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Queue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queue/gifts).



> So once upon a time, I said to the folks on my LJ friendslist, "Hey, friends, let's play a game! Here's how this game works: you comment to me and say something like 'hey, riverlight, what happened that time when Ray and Fraser got stranded in the airport?' Or 'what about when the bandom boys met these two crazy New York sports anchors because they couldn't find the right studio?'" And then, I said, quoting etben, _I try to write it! for values of "write" that contain an awful lot of handwaving and FOR REASONS OF PLOT. This is STORYTIME, not fic-writing time; High Literature Hour has been cancelled due to inclement weather and a shitty acronym. *g*_
> 
> And queue asked _So, riverlight, what happened that time when Ianto came to work with a smear of flour across one cheek from where he'd been checking the rise on his bread, and Jack seized a private moment to point it out to him?_
> 
> This is what resulted.

Ianto discovers quickly that Jack likes games. Jack being Jack, it's the dirtier the better, but he'll play anything—online trivia games, the weird floaty alien checkers-like game they found in the archives, card games—Ianto saw him play two hours of "go fish" with a child in a hospital waiting room once. (To be fair, he'd been on his feet for forty hours straight, dealing with the latest crisis; at that point, cards were probably all any of them could handle, even Jack.)

Kinky games too, of course; Gwen won't play truth or dare with Jack after the last time (Ianto wouldn't have thought Jack could come up with quite so many interesting dares whilst stuck in the SUV, but apparently he just doesn't have sufficient imagination). And Ianto—well, suffice it to say that if Ianto had a mental checklist of kinky sex games to play (not that he does, but if he did) then he'd have managed to check off rather more than he might have expected, the past few months.

So really, he should have known to be wary, when Jack suggested poker; if nothing else, he should have shut Jack down (politely, of course, oh so politely) when Jack suggested some "additional rules." But Ianto had had a pint down the pub and was feeling pleasantly warm and relaxed, and Jack was sitting across from him in shirtsleeves with cuffs rolled up and forearms bare, looking slightly mussed and eminently touchable, so Ianto thinks it's forgivable if he was a little distracted.

At least he'd insisted Jack write down these rules of his; he'd had in mind only Jack's tendency to cheat, but the haze of alcohol from rules 1-3 and the rather stunning orgasm that was the result of rules 4-8 meant that he'd have entirely forgotten the actual details, without having them in writing.

(The morning after, Ianto had come in to find Jack had taped the slip of paper to his monitor (and Owen had gotten in before he had, worse luck).)

 _The Harkness Rules of Poker,_ they read, in Jack's scrawl:

 _1: drink for every a flush (yours or the other player's)  
2: one drink for each same-numbered card _(Ianto had had a four of a kind early on; he'll blame much of what happened later on the resultant tipsiness) _  
3: two drinks each Ace you get  
4: take two items of clothing off for each pair _(Jack had started with relatively fewer items of clothing than Ianto; by the fifth hand, he was down to just his trousers and braces) _  
5: take an item of clothing off when the other person takes the pot  
6: take an item of clothing off if you fold  
7: take an item of clothing off if the other player plays a wild_ (Ianto still is not entirely sure that Jack didn't have a few jokers up his sleeve) _  
8: Disrobe entirely if the other person plays a five-of-a-kind_

(He'd also, halfway through, instituted the rule that they had to kiss to ante in; Ianto probably should have protested, but by then Jack was more naked than not, and Ianto's only human.)

So far as Ianto could tell, Jack appeared to make the rules up on the spot. He'd had the sort of gleam in his eye that meant he was sure of himself as only Jack Harkness could be and was planning something devious. (Ianto's seen that look many times, and when it doesn't end with Jack outwitting devious aliens or pulling one over on Cardiff residents, it meant Ianto spread naked and begging in Jack's bed; the look means that Jack always gets what he wants, and he knows it.)

But Ianto'd started with two advantages: one, he had rather more clothing than Jack, all told (three-piece suits were rather useful in that regard, at least). And two, he'd been the champion of the house poker games at uni, and he's been reliably informed that he has a good poker face.

So Jack now has a little tally in the corner of the whiteboard in his office. _Ianto: 1. Jack: 0._ And Ianto keeps the little slip of paper with the rules on folded up in his wallet.

(Next time they play, he thinks he'll suggest that instead of playing for money, they bet with various items from the N'Orian sex manual/porno book that Jack keeps under his bed.)

* * *

So Ianto likes baking bread. It's a weird thing to do, maybe—it's not something his mates would do, that's for sure—but he learned it one weekend in Uni when he had a broken ankle from rugby and couldn't bear another day sitting around watching stupid movies, so he opened his one cookbook at random and decided to make it, just for kicks. And it turns out that punching down the dough and kneading are _totally_ good for days when Torchwood is driving him crazy. And it makes the flat smell _divine._

Jack likes it too, which is, frankly, not an insignificant consideration. The first time he came over and found Ianto's place smelling like bread and a loaf cooling on the counter, they missed their dinner reservation because Jack was too busy ravishing Ianto up against the wall in the kitchen (and really, "ravishing" was really the only word for it). (If it had anything to do with the apron Ianto was wearing at the time, he _doesn't want to know about it._ He's not against role-playing, but really, there is nothing sexy about aprons, no _matter_ what Jack might say.)

It's not that he gets terribly much chance to bake, these days, but occasionally it happens. The time in question, he's got the rarest-of-rare things: a Saturday off in which he not only has no work, but no errands to run, no laundry to do, and no plans with Jack. So he cleans his apartment, pays his bills, and puts a batch of multigrain-and-rye up to rise. He's just about to settle in with a good book and a glass of wine when his phone rings, of course, and of course it's Torchwood. So he's rather pissed, because he was _really_ looking forward to having some time alone, but of course he goes in, because that's what you _do_ when you work for Torchwood. He doesn't want to lose the dough, though, so he takes it in with him.

Two hours later, he's still grumpy, and now he's tired from a bout of rather energetic running while he was corralling six foot-tall aliens back into their crate in the cell for a trip through the Rift tomorrow. But at least it was a relatively short emergency—only took him and Jack half an hour to get them boxed back up—and his bread is now in the oven in the kitchen. And hey, it's still the end of the day, and he had the foresight to bring the bottle of wine as well, so it's not all bad.

So he goes to find Jack and suggests a glass of wine and a game of Harkness Rules strip-poker (because really, the times when they're alone in the Hub are pretty rare, and should be savored). Half an hour later, he's down to his shirtsleeves and is barefoot but has his trousers, and Jack's in his shirt and shorts and nothing else. But then he makes Jack pause because he remembers he has to go take the bread out, so he goes and does that.

But he's no sooner reseated himself and picked up his cards when Jack's eyes widen and he reaches across the table (it's a little table; they're sitting there with their knees bumping) and rubs a bit of flour off Ianto's cheek. Ianto, who by now is conditioned to react to Jack touching him like this, turns his head so he's kissing Jack's fingers instead, and thirty seconds after _that_ the game is forgotten and Ianto is kneeling in Jack's chair so that he can sit practically in Jack's lap, and he has Jack's head tilted back and is kissing him like there's no tomorrow. And then he makes short work of Jack's remaining clothes, poker be damned, and they have sex right there in the chair. Because Jack, apparently, has a thing for men being domestic.

Ianto files this away for future reference. Next time, he's going to make soup as _well._


End file.
